So said a Holocaust
survivor and anti-apartheid activist about his trip to Jackson, Mississippi in
1961. The same impulse inspires BDS activists from all walks of life today, says
Eric Walberg
International boycott,
divestment and sanctions (BDS) activities got a boost at the founding conference
of the Palestinian Trade Union
Coalition for BDS in Ramallah on 30 April. It called on trade unions around the
world to sever all links with the Israel
labour federation Histadrut. Histadrut protects illegal
Israeli workers in the settlements and doesn’t protect the legal Palestinian
workers there, having withheld almost $2.5 billion of their wages over the
years, deducted for “social and other trade union benefits” that they have never
received.
There was good and bad
news on the political front in the past month. Scottish voters rejected the
pro-war, pro-Israel Labour
Party and elected the Scottish Nationalist Party, whose
leader leader Alex
Salmond supports sanctions against Israel.